Red Canoe deserves a boatload of ridicule

By BILL VIRGIN, P-I COLUMNIST

Published 10:00 pm, Wednesday, November 8, 2006

Credit unions face a host of pressing issues critical to their future success -- their expansion into business lending and whether they have the expertise to handle such loans, for example, and the demand by banks that credit unions be taxed.

But Washington's credit unions, their members and customers are now confronting a looming trend threatening to be even more significant to their existence: The plague of cutesy, meaningless and nonsensical names that many institutions are now adopting.

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Here is the rationalization for this selection, as explained in a Q-and-A posted on the credit union's Web site:

"The Red Canoe name was selected because of its unique Northwest flavor. It reflects our credit union's passionate nature and progressive style. The Red Canoe name is wholly unique in the financial services industry, just like our credit union."

Aside from the inherent goofiness of the Red Canoe name, the credit union didn't even get right the stereotypical watercraft to evoke the Northwest. Red Canoe, if it qualifies at all as the name of a financial institution (and it doesn't), might be more appropriate for a credit union in Maine. Red Kayak would be more fitting for a credit union in the Northwest.

Red Canoe may be the most immediate and laughable example, but it has plenty of company. King County Credit Union recently announced plans to change its name to Prevail. Some years back, Seattle Telco Credit Union changed its name to Watermark, which sounds more like a stationery store. The former NW Federal Credit Union has been known for years as Verity; the former Safeway credit union is now known as Qualstar. Washington boasts both a Harborstone and a Woodstone credit union; a "harborstone" sounds like an underwater hazard you don't want your Red Canoe to strike.

Rolled eyes and stifled guffaws were probably not what the executives of Weyerhaeuser Employees Credit Union had in mind, but that's not the only reaction to be concerned about. If you were a retail cashier, how much credibility would you give to a check with the name Red Canoe as the institution in which funds to pay for the purchase are supposedly deposited?

There is a serious reason credit unions are in the market for new names, as noted by John Annaloro, president of the Washington Credit Union League. For years, credit unions served workers at one employer or at a small group of companies. In recent decades credit unions have been granted permission to expand their fields of membership. Diversification of risk was one reason, Annaloro says; corporate mergers and factory closings also compelled credit unions to expand their membership base.

With many credit unions now open to residents from all over the state, regardless of where they work, those institutions need a name that indicates their membership extends beyond the original sponsoring employer. Boeing Employees Credit Union, one such institution with a statewide field of membership, now markets itself as BECU.

That explains the shift, but it doesn't explain the affliction. Could names such as Red Canoe or Prevail confuse customers about what the establishment is or does?

The names, he adds, were selected with considerable professional help, a point also made in Weyerhaeuser Employees Credit Union's explanation:

"We spent many months working with a joint team of board, management and an experienced naming firm to create a name that celebrated the best of what our credit union has become while positioning us for the future. We conducted research with our members, communities and staff to gather vital information about our organization. After carefully evaluating hundreds of names, we felt that Red Canoe Credit Union best reflected the direction of our new brand."

That may be true. Then again, both "Say WA" and "metronatural" also were selected after lengthy and expensive research by supposed professionals, and what they produced was lots of material for ridicule.

The good news for the tourism industry is that "Say WA" and "metronatural" eventually will fade to become bad memories. The bad news for customers of credit unions prone to listen to what too-clever-for-words branding experts tell them is that names such as Red Canoe will be on account statements and checkbooks to mock customers for years to come.